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Pulmonary Surgeries

Lung surgeries
Any surgery is a traumatic surgery. That too if a person is told that he has to sacrifice a part of the lung due to a lung abscess or destroyed lung or lung cancer. As in the minds of the common man heart and lung are the most essential and can not be sacrificed.

The thoracic surgeries can be as mild as a bronchoscopy or as major as thoracotomy. But the person who undergoes a bronchoscopy or thoracotomy undergoes or experiences the same trauma.

Bronchoscopy
In bronchoscopy you are given a local anesthetic spray to keep your throat numb. After this you will get a an injection in your throat. This injection of a local anesthetic in the trachea or wind pipe will make a cough a bit and after that the throat will be completely numb. After 3 minutes of waiting the flexible bronchoscope will be passed through your nose or mouth and the bronchial tree will be seen. If the physician has access to video he will do a videobronchoscopy. Samples like bronchial wash, biopsy and lung biopsies can be taken for studies. The whole study can be completed within a matter 15 minutes.

Usually there are no side effects. One can have some discomfort in throat, fever in evening., blood stained sputum or occasionally accumulation of air in pleural cavity that can cause pain in the chest. All these are minor side effects and do not cause any major problems.

Lung surgeries
Lung surgeries can be due to removal of foreign body or a lung cancer or when there is lot of coughing out of blood. The surgery can be lobectomy, pneumonectomy, decortication.

There are 5 lobes in human lung. Any one of these lobes can be removed safely without compromising lung function. This surgery is called lobectomy

Some times the whole lung can be destroyed and may noy participate in any function and will be only of nuisance value. In such situations a whole lung can be removed without compromising lung function. This surgery is called pneumonectomy.

Some tomes the layers covering the lung pleura can be thickened preventing complete expansion of lung and there by preventing lung function. The whole pleura can be removed called decortication.

In all these surgeries there is a need for general anesthesia. The anesthetist and the general surgeons should be told about the medical history like diabetis, high blood pressure and use of any drugs like aspirin/

The person who undergoes surgery will be in the hospital for 10 days. After the surgery there will be a tube hanging out of your chest for 2 to 5 days to remove any fluid that collects in the chest. If one is prepared for this pain before the surgery the recovery from the operation is smooth and fast.

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